Big City Eyes by Delia Ephron

Author:Delia Ephron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

By the time I arrived at the fair, around one-thirty, I was worn out, thanks to five nights of spotty sleep, that early drive to Islip, and my visit with Jane. Once I’d taken Demerol for a medical test, and this feeling was similar: a sense of sweet oblivion. I was making my dazed way past a giant corn roaster when I spied McKee at the barbecue.

He was spearing chicken and sausages with a large fork, serving lines of people five deep. To keep him in my line of vision, I had to keep shifting, which was difficult in my groggy state.

“Why didn’t you return my call?” I demanded loudly across people calling out orders. Exhaustion had a freeing effect. I might say anything that came into my soft head.

“I got back last night from a police convention in Atlantic City. White or dark, Winston?” he asked the next customer.

“White. Are we going to fire this principal, too?” the man asked.

McKee laughed, and they discussed how disruptive it was to have three principals in three years. A woman named Sarah interrupted to inquire whether Tom would please have a talk with her neighbor, because he was siphoning her water supply. McKee promised to take care of it the next day.

Someone bumped my shoulder. A woman in a baseball cap. She tapped her brim by way of a hello. I nodded and moved away, out to the crowd’s periphery. “I’d like to interview you,” I shouted to McKee, knowing he would go along with the ruse.

“By the big pumpkin. In an hour. What can I get for you, Mrs. Whitley?”

He continued serving, didn’t miss a friendly beat, and I wandered off to do my job, among the makeshift plywood stands decorated with crepe paper. McKee’s wife could be volunteering in one of them. I meandered past the ring toss, the win-a-goldfish booth, and the fortune-teller. Teenagers knocked into me, hurrying by in noisy clusters. A terrible country-rock group wailed from a portable stage. I drank a Coke, pumping in sugar and caffeine to spark the energy to collect some quotes, carefully selecting people who did not turn away when I made eye contact: kids happy to show off their newly won fish or stuffed animals; small children tugging their parents along to spin-art or the makeup booth; fairgoers with lips dyed red from cherry Sno-Kones, and wisps of cotton candy stuck in their hair. I enjoyed it. I always enjoy collecting data. Only one mother rejected me, hoisting her toddler and brushing past with a curt, “We’re late.” The hour did not pass quickly. Twice that woman in a baseball cap turned up where I was. First she was hanging around the hook-and-ladder truck. It had been backed from the street onto the Little League field, and four- and five-year-olds were scrambling all over it. She showed up again at the booth where kids knocked down wooden pins with a Softball. Was I being tailed, I wondered, then kicked myself for having such a ridiculously paranoid thought.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.